INTERNATIONAL DISCORDS.
And so with regard to international affairs, whether we are concerned with the prospects of peace or with the prospects of a restoration of general prosperity we find ourselves up against this .same question of national and party polities. I venture to say that at
(Continued on page 714.) Finance—Public and Private (Continued from page 712.) any time during recent years an International Com- mittee of Bankers given the necessary power could have correctly diagnosed the situation and could have applied remedies calculated favourably to affect the inter- national credit system as a whole and also calculated to set in motion influences favourable to world prosperity. The main barrier, however, to such schemes has con- sisted of international jealousies and distrust and also very often of local party politics. It is a poor tribute to the system of democratic Government, but never. theless it is true to say that, when, as for instance at the present time, a Presidential Election is impending in the United States, it is useless to expect that any economic problem will be dealt with on the merits of the situation, which will in all probability have to be sacrificed to the supposed immediate requirements of political expediency. A "swing to the Left" in France may conceivably materially affect the decisions to be reached later on at Lausanne, yet those decisions, in their turn, must greatly affect other decisions to be taken later, all of which, again, must inevitably react, for good or for ill, upon international confidence and upon international trade and prosperity.
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